Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’ His new book revolves around a couple’s friendship with author and playwright William Somerset Maugham, set in the 1920s and orbiting the imperial dynasty of China and the unease of Empire.

Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Lesley says: “The vastness, the emptiness of Karoo countryside made me want to weep when we first moved here. Everything was so bleak — the land, the light, the faces of the people.I was a child of the equator, Born under monsoon skies; I pined for the cloying humanity of Penang”.This is, indeed, a novel of many doors – perhaps a couple too many. The title refers to the literal kind: the ancient Chinese doors collected by the revolutionary Chinese lover of Lesley Hamlyn, Somerset Maugham’s fictional English host, and stored in the house in downtown Penang in which the couple meet.

There is not the slightest stir of wind, and there is no sound, not even the usual petulant bleating of sheep from the valley. The world is so still, so quiescent, that I wonder if it has stopped turning. But then, high above the land, I see a tremor in the air. A pair of raptors, far from their mountain eyrie. For a minute or two I want to believe they are brahminy kites, but of course they cannot be. A week after we had settled into our new home we were invited to the farmhouse for dinner. The sun was just burrowing into the mountains when we walked the half-mile there from our bungalow. We had to stop a few times along the way for Robert to catch his breath. Bernard Presgrave was thirty-eight, twelve years Robert’s junior. Robust and ruddy-faced, he reminded me of Robert when I first married him. His farm was called Doornfontein, the Fountain of Thorns, the kind of inauspicious name that would have set my old amah Ah Peng muttering darkly, ‘Asking for trouble only.’ But Bernard and his wife Helena, a placid and dull girl from the Cape, appeared to be prospering.

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Well, one of these days, then,’ said Robert. ‘The old girl’s quite the expert on our island’s history, Willie. Knows everything about the place. Used to give our friends from abroad tours of the town. We showed that German writer around when he was in Penang – what was his name, dear? Hesse, wasn’t it? Yes. Hermann Hesse.’ The way Tan Twan Eng deftly weaves in some elements of Maugham's style so that it almost sounds like a pastiche and adds some elements from Maugham's books, some of the realia, is just extraordinary. Since I've started The Casuarina Tree, a collection of Maugham's short stories set mostly in Malaysia, which inspired The House of Doors, I appreciate Tan Twan Eng's talent even more. Not just talent. How much work, time and research must have gone into this novel and, at the same time, it seems so effortless, so understated, so smooth, so subtle. I liked some of his stories,’ said Helena. ‘But “Rain”’ – she made a face – ‘I’ll never forget that one.’

The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When “Willie” Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert's, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one. Tan Twan Eng’s third novel, which was longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, is set in the early 1920s, when the British writer William Somerset Maugham and his secretary (and lover) Gerald Haxton visit the coastal province of Penang, Malaysia, as the guests of Lesley and Robert Hamlyn. Attempting to offer up a more detail book report here….but be clear ….the best thing I can say to others is “just read it!!!” They currently have none other than famous novelist and old friend of Robert’s, W. Somerset Maugham (whom they affectionately call Willie) staying with them.

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Willie has hidden his homosexuality…..and was married to Syrie. They lived in London, had one daughter, but Willie traveled so much with his ‘secretary’ (cover-up for lover) so often he wasn’t home much.. Their marriage of convenience was unraveling. Thank you Canongate and NetGalley and Tan Twan Eng for this advance copy in exchange for my honest review. Lesley cut in before he could reply. ‘I’m meeting the church bazaar ladies today, and I have errands to run in town afterwards.’ The novel was inspired by the short story called Letter, which can be read in the Cassowary Tree collection. Also, if you read this novel, you will probably wonder how Maugham’s symbol looks like. The House of Doors is a fascinating, beautiful book . . . One doesn't have to know anything about Somerset Maugham to appreciate it, but the echoes make the work even richer.

This novel is beautifully engrossing — filled with fascinating heartfelt and heart-wrenching gripping history The Doberman lying at Robert’s feet lifted his head and barked as Willie approached the table. Husband and wife lowered their newspapers. ‘Don’t be rude, Claudius,’ Robert said, reaching down to rub the dog’s ears. ‘Morning, Willie. You’re bright and early. Sleep well?’The poor boy did look rather peaky last night.’ Robert peered over his spectacles at Willie. ‘And so do you, if you don’t mind me saying.’ There's much to be said about Eng's ability to craft a scene, especially the vivid settings and descriptions of nature. Though the novel as a whole seems to fall into many of the tropes of historical fiction, he does excel in rendering a location or crafting a rich environment within which his characters reside.